Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-11-19
NYE' AND D0NNELLI.
THE STANDARDIZATION PUZZLE WRESl-
LED WITH CONSCIENTl0USLl.
Why Bill Fayors the Claim Of Bill SHAKESPEARE
lis Handwriting Skil!fully
Touched Upon.

While expressing the hope that it will
not in any way impair the sale Of MI. Don
uelly's new book, Bill Nye says 10 the
New York World he desires to offer a few
words in favor of the theory that William
Shakespeare wrote his owu works and
thought his own thinks. The time has
fully arrived when we humorists ought to
stand by each other.
| DO not undertake to stand up tor the
PERSONAL character of Shakespeare, hut |
SAY that ne wrote good pieces and don't
care who knows il. 1t is doubtless true
that at the age of IL he married q woman
eight years his senior, and that children
began to cluster about their heaTthStOne
in a way that would have made n man in
a New York Hat commit suicide. Three
little children within fourteen months, in
Guiding twins. came TO the humble home
of the great bard, and he began to 90 out
and climb up on the haymOw TODD his
writing. Sometimes be would stay away
from home for two or three weeks at a
time, fearing that when he entered the
house someone would tell him that ne was
again q parent.
Yet William Shakespeare knew all the
time that he was a great man, and that
some day he would write pieces to speak.
| He lett Stralford at the age of twenty-oGe
and went to London, where he attracted
very little attention, for he belonged to the
yeomsnry, being 4 kind of dramatic HOr-
ace Greeley, both in the matter of clothes
! and ~penmanship. Thus it would seem
that while Sir Francis Bacon was attend.
ING a business college and getting himself
familiar with the whOle-arm-movement so
as to be able to write a free, cryptOgra-
nous hand, poor W. Shakespeare was
slowly thinking the hair of his head while
ever and anon he would bring ont his
writing materials and bis bright ready
tongue and write q SONNET On an empty
stomach.
Prior to leaving StratfOrd he is said to
have dabbled in the poaching business in
an humble q on the estates OF Sir
Thomas Lucy, since deceased, and he
wrote the following encomium, an odelet,
in a free, running hand and pinned 1t on
the knights gate:
o, deer Thomas Luce
Your veuison's JUICY,
Jucy i your tniSOn,
Hence l append my benson.
The rose is red, the yioset,s blue,
| The keepers u chump and 80 are you,
| Which Is why remark sndmy language is plain
High Low Jack
And the Game.
Let me now once more refer to the mat
I ter Of the signature. Mach has been said
of Mr.. Shakespeare's coarse, irregular aud
vulgar penmanship, which, il Is claimed,
| shows the ignorance OF its owner, and hence
| the inability to write the immortal plays
Let us compare she signature Of Shakes
peare with that of Mr.. Greeley, and we
| notice . wonderful similarity. Tbete is
| the same weird effort in both cases 10 ont
cryptogram old .Cryptogramus himself
| and enshrine Immortal thought and heaven
born genius in o bRrglar-prOof panoply Of
worm fences and q chirography that re-
minds the careful student Of the general
direction taken in returning 10 Round
( Knob, y. c., by q correspondent who Wis
tied the home Of q mConshiner with a view
towards ascertainiUg the general tendency
| of .brewed whisky to hy tn the head,
II we Judge Shakespeare by his sigma
ture. not one of US will be safe. Death
will wipe out tame with q wet sponge;
John Hancock in 100 years from now viii
be regarded as the author of the Declare
ton of Independence, and Compendium
Gsskell as the author Of the New EoIB
TribURs.
have every reason to believe that while
William Shakespeare was going about tbs
streets of London, poor but brainy, erTau'
but smart, b~aldheaded but filed with :
nameless yearning to write q play with
real water and a topical song in 1t, Frsuci,
Bacon was practieing on his signature, get
ting used 70 the full-arm movement, spoil
ing sheet after sheet of paper trying t
make a violet swan on q red woven wir'
mattress of shaded loops without takiuS
his pen off the psper and running the re
bus column OF . business college paper.
Poets are born, not maaa, and many q
them are born with odd and even disagree
able characteristics. Some men are bOrI
poets, while it is true that some acquirt
poetry while others have poetry thrus
upon them. Poetry is like the faculty, i
may 50 denomiuate il, OF being able Il
voluntarily move the ears. 1t is q gift. l
cannot be taught to Others.
So Shakespeare, with all his poor pen
manship, with his proneness to poaeh, will
his poverty and his neglect Of his wife anC
children, could write a play wherein tb,
leading man and the man who played tn,
bass drum in the orchestra did not claim u
have made the principal part.
Shakespeare did not want bis plays pub
lHshed. He wanted to keep them out o
the press in order to prevent their use q